APRIL, 2025: The author (back row, right) and friends after a dinner in New York City, with Shashank … More Mani Tripathi (center), Member of Parliament of India from the Deoria Lok Sabha Constituency of Uttar Pradesh. Elected in 2024 representing the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP), Mani’s priority is catalyzing entrepreneurial activity across India, not just in the largest cities, and not limited to technology entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n
HARI SRIPATHI<\/p>\n
It seems India is on everyone\u2019s manufacturing short list. Apple\u2019s India-produced iPhone exports ramped to nearly $13 billion in 2024<\/a>. Firms from Tesla to Intel are considering the country for production. Rumors of India-US trade deals percolate.<\/p>\n Interest in India\u2019s manufacturing potential transcends cheap labor. The world\u2019s most populace country also offers deep tech knowledge and a new universe of customers.<\/p>\n Unlike China before, however, India\u2019s rise will likely not be primarily an export-driven story. While China achieved rapid development from the early 1980s onward by becoming \u201cfactory to the world,\u201d internal consumption lagged, creating challenges the country faces today.<\/p>\n Successful development going forward requires new paths, because the technologies driving change fundamentally differ from those of the past.<\/p>\n Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Tim Cook poses for a selfie with a fan during the launch of … More the new Apple Inc. store in New Delhi, India on April 20, 2023. (Photo by Kabir Jhangiani\/NurPhoto via Getty Images)<\/p>\n NurPhoto via Getty Images<\/p>\n It\u2019s 2025\u2014 <\/strong>Not 1985.<\/p>\n Industrial age technologies biased companies toward large-scale production and standardization in locations with abundant cheap labor, often locating factories thousands of miles from ultimate demand. This approach also relied on a stable world trading system, largely provided by Pax Americana of the past 80 years.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, such optimized global supply chains prove vulnerable, even brittle, in the face of geopolitical tensions, trade wars and severe climate events. Digital Age technologies offer solutions and enable\u2014require\u2014an alternative development model.<\/p>\n Due to all things digital, India has the transformative opportunity to encourage internal consumption in parallel with seeking export markets. This parallel path to prosperity<\/strong> offers an emerging development model for the coming decades. Companies and countries that understand the pivotal distinctions between Industrial Age and Digital Age technologies are far more likely to win.<\/p>\n By Indians, For Indians: Prosperity Via Proximity<\/strong><\/p>\n In April I had the opportunity (thanks to Hari Sripathi) to join a private dinner with Shashank Mani<\/a>, a new member of India\u2019s parliament and a former top executive with PWC India. We gathered in New York with a dozen investors and prominent members of the Indian diaspora to learn about his vision for India\u2019s future.<\/p>\n As Mr. Mani describes in his bestseller, Middle of Diamond India: National Renaissance Through Participation and Enterprise<\/a>, most development in India has centered on tier-one cities like financial capital Mumbai and technology hubs like Bangalore and Pune. Yet hundreds of millions of Indians live in second and third tier cities and surrounding areas. Mani argues that \u201cif India fails to bring the vast middle into the future, then India itself fails.\u201d<\/p>\n Shashank Mani (center) visiting a school in his home district of Deoria in the state of Uttar … More Pradesh in northern India, May, 2025.<\/p>\n SHASHANK MANI<\/p>\n In addition to supporting tech entrepreneurs, the country must catalyze home-grown businesses responsive to local needs. Enabling people to start businesses serving local communities and regional customers provides a sustainable development engine less vulnerable to geopolitical challenges and the whims of overseas consumers.<\/p>\n The great news is that digital technologies drive value creation ever closer to the moment of demand<\/strong>, a trend known as proximity<\/a>. They enable more sophisticated kinds of businesses to thrive anywhere.<\/p>\n India\u2019s outsized success with IT outsourcing offers hope; however, it also reflects the old model of services export reliant on highly educated cheap labor–and it\u2019s at great risk due to AI. New technologies can bring other types of value creation closer to home.<\/p>\n India Leapfrogs The West<\/strong><\/p>\n Consider healthcare. Over the past four years, cancer care startup Karkinos<\/a>–acquired in 2024 by Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani\u2019s Reliance Industries–has created 80 centers across 12 Indian states, having so far screened over 3 million people for cancer. Many of those receiving care live in remote villages, heretofore without access to such diagnostics and treatment.<\/p>\n Entrepreneur and author Vivek Wadhwa making an exponential case.<\/p>\n Becky Kirkland\/NC State University<\/p>\n